All the passages below are taken from
Martyn Lloyd-Jones’ book “God the Holy Spirit.” The sermon was preached
at Westminister Chapel, London, from 1952 to 1955 and first published in 1997
and this edition in 2002.

You will remember that we are still
considering this great doctrine of regeneration - the work of the Holy Spirit in
regenerating the believer. It is such a vital and all-important subject that I
have deliberately not hurried with it. I have forgotten all about form and
precision and have allowed the great truth itself to lead us and to guide us.
Now we have considered something of its essential nature. We have considered
also why it is absolutely essential, and we have seen how it is brought about
and in particular its relationship to the word. We have emphasised in
particular that no means are used in our regeneration; it is the direct,
immediate work of the Spirit upon our souls. Furthermore, it is something that
can never be lost; it is a work done by God and it is a work that is permanent.
Ultimately, the security of the believer, as we shall see when we come to deal
with the doctrine of final perseverance, rests specifically upon this great
doctrine of regeneration.

We come now to the consideration of a
subject which, while it is essentially doctrinal, is also more practical. The
essential purpose of these lectures is to look at doctrine, but I have tried
throughout to show that this is not something dry and arid, theoretical and
abstract. My concern with doctrine is because of all things, it helps me most in
the living of the Christian life. So we must, perforce, turn occasionally to
consider the practical application and therefore I want to deal now with the
results to which regeneration leads, or to put it another way, the proofs of
the fact that we are regenerate. I know that this troubles large numbers of
people and that is why I am turning to it. `My difficulty is,' they say, `how
may I know that I'm regenerated?' Now that is an essential part
of the doctrine of regeneration and that is why I have called this the
results to which regeneration leads. It is a subject about which the
Bible has a great deal to tell us.

We can start from this general principle:
regeneration, we have shown, is the implanting within us of a
principle of spiritual life. Very well, life is something that always shows
itself. A baby gives proof of the fact that it is born alive and not stillborn,
by screaming or moving. You cannot have life without some kind of
manifestation of that life and that is as true of spiritual life as it is of any
other form of life.So the Bible has many tests which it puts before us
in order to help us to know whether we are truly regenerate or not.The
classic passage of Scripture on this is the first epistle of John. One man
who wrote a book on 1 John very rightly, I think, gave it the title The Tests of
Life. And that is precisely what the first epistle of John is. But I always feel
that the Beatitudes are also a test of life and of regeneration and they
are the tests put forward by our Lord Himself.

Now let us look at this briefly. In the
first epistle of John there are four main testswhich John constantly
repeats. (There are other subsidiary tests, but we will not be dealing with
these.) 1 John is an epistle which can be divided up with comparative ease on
condition that we realise that it depends upon the recognition of these four
major tests of spiritual life or of the fact that we are regenerate. I shall
not take them precisely in the order in which they appear but they are to be
found in every section of the epistle.

The first test is believing that Jesus
is the Christ. John says,
`Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God
... Hereby know ye the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesseth that Jesus
Christ is come in the flesh is of God' (1 John 4:1-2). Now that is a
tremendous statement. It means the full doctrine about the Lord Jesus Christ.
It means that you believe that He is indeed eternal God, one of the three
Persons of the blessed Holy Trinity. Apply that test to some of the cults
around today and you will see what a vital test it is. It is not enough that
you praise Jesus Christ, not even enough that you say He is the Son of God. You
must say that He is Jehovah, that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh---the
eternal Son of God, co-equal, co-eternal with the Father---that the second
Person in the blessed Trinity has come in the flesh. It was not a phantom
body, `The Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us' (John 1:14). It is all that
we said earlier1 about the great doctrine of the person of our Lord
and Saviour Jesus Christ. John is very fond of repeating this. He says it again
in chapter 5 in the first verse: `Whosoever,' he says, 'believeth that
Jesus is the Christ is born of God: and every one that loveth him that begat
loveth him also that is begotten of him,' and so on. And, you remember, Paul has
said the same thing. He said, `No man can say that Jesus is Lord, but by the
Holy Ghost' (1 Corinthians 12:3). You cannot say it otherwise. The man
who tells me that Jesus is Lord, and puts the right content into that statement
and is not merely repeating it mechanically, is giving proof of the fact that
the Holy Spirit is in him, that he is regenerate.

The second test is the test of keeping
the commandments. That is
actually the first test that John introduces: `And hereby we do know that we
know him, if we keep his commandments' (1 John 2:3). And John constantly repeats
that also; you will find it in every section of the epistle. He says it again in
the very last section: `For this is the love of God, that we keep his
commandments: and his commandments are not grievous' (1 John 5:3). He
sometimes refers to it as `doing righteousness' (1 John 2:29). That is the
way to distinguish between the child of God and the child of the devil, John
says. And not only that; not only does this child of God, this person who is
born again, keep the commandments, to him the commandments are a delight. God's
commandments, says John, are not a burden; they are not against the grain.
Christians are not always kicking against them and wishing they were not there;
they enjoy keeping the commandments. You will find that again elaborated by
Paul in Romans 7. So keeping the commandments is a most important test. Our
relationship to the commandments of God and of Christ proclaims at once whether
or not we are recipients of this blessed new life.

The third test is that He has given us
His Holy Spirit. `Hereby
we know,' says John, at the end of the third chapter, `that he abideth in us, by
the Spirit which he hath given us' (v. 29).

`But,' says someone, `how do I know that
I have received the Spirit?'

Well, we shall have to deal with that
later on as we continue in our consideration of this doctrine, but one aspect of
it is certainly this: there is such a thing, says the apostle Paul, as `the
Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry, Abba, Father' (Romans 8:15). Paul says that
again in Galatians 4:6: `God hath sent forth the Spirit of his Son into your
hearts, crying, Abba, Father.' The Spirit is `the Spirit of adoption' and one of
the proofs, therefore, that the Holy Spirit is in us is that, though we may not
understand it fully, we have a feeling, a consciousness, that God is our Father.He is no longer a God afar off, but is our Father. We say, `My God, my
Father.' There are also other manifestations of the presence of the Spirit but
we must leave these to a subsequent lecture.

The last test is that we love the
brethren. `We know that
we have passed from death unto life, because we love the brethren' (1 John
3:14), and this is a wonderful test. It is a test that points on to the next
theme that we shall consider, namely the mystical union of all believers with
the Lord Jesus Christ and therefore with one another. This is inevitable, you
see. If we are all joined to Him and joined to one another, we are related to
one another and we inevitably love one another. In other words, we recognise
Christians when we meet them. In a sense, we don't need to be told that
people are Christians, we recognise them at once and we feel that we have always
known them. They belong to the same family, we are related to one another. We
prefer their society to any other. If you offered us the choice of spending
our evening with the so-called great people of this world or with some humble
unknown Christian people, we would prefer to spend our evening with the unknown
Christian people. There is something in common; we love them; we know that
we belong together; nothing can ever separate us. `We know that we have passed
from death to life because we love the brethren.' If we do not recognise
Christians, even at their worst, and love them, then we had better examine the
whole foundation of our position. The children of the family love one another.

Those, then, are the four main tests
given by John in his first epistle, but there are other tests suggested
elsewhere in Scripture and I just want to note them. Here is one which I
regard as of great value and which has, many a time, been a great comfort to me:
the consciousness of a struggle within. That is an extremely valuable test.
Paul puts it perfectly in Galatians 5:17 where he teaches us that `the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh: and these two,' he
says, `are contrary the one to the other: so that ye cannot do the things that
ye would.' The Spirit and the flesh. They are warring or `lusting' against one
another.What it means is that Christians, by definition, are people in
whom a great competition is taking place. The Holy Spirit, as it were, wants
them for God, but the flesh---this other spirit that is worked by the
devil---wants them for the kingdom of darkness. So they are fighting for
possession and Christians are aware of
the fact that they are the seat of conflict, that a kind of internecine warfare
is taking place within them.
They are conscious of these two forces, these two powers, and men and women who
are conscious of that have a right to know that they are Christians.

But be very careful. I am not merely
talking about the consciousness of good and evil, right and wrong; they have a
sense of moral decency and have a code of ethics and may feel that they let
themselves down. I am not referring to that. What I am referring to is very
different. In the old unregenerate life, you are aware of the fact that you are
handling the whole situation, everything depends upon what you do. You, as it
were, are dealing with the conflict. But what I am describing now is that you
become aware of the fact that there is another Spirit apart from yourself, in
you, dealing with you, working in you, drawing you, weaning you from the world
and indicating truth to you. You are aware of the operation of the Holy Spirit
and you are aware of the power of Satan in a sense that you never were before.

A very good sign, therefore, that people
are born again is that they become more acutely aware of the existence and the
working of Satan than they have ever been hitherto.
There is no need for Satan to busy himself very much with the unregenerate. They
can be left, as it were; they are already bound; they are already in his kingdom
and they cannot escape. But once people are transferred to the kingdom of God
and the kingdom of light, the devil makes a new effort and in a spiritual way
comes to them and attacks them. And they are aware of this other presence that
is fighting for their life and for their very existence. Flesh and Spirit - the
conflict is a proof of regeneration.

Another very good test
is this: anybody who is aware of a desire to know God and not merely a desire
to be blessed by God, can be quite happy and certain of being a child of God.
Everybody wants blessings, of course. Yes, but the peculiar mark of children is
that they are interested in the person. They want their Father. They want to
know their Father better. They are more interested in the Giver than the gift,
the Blesser than the blessing. They begin to know something of a hunger and
thirst for God Himself, as the psalmist puts it, `for the living God' (Psalm
42:2). Their soul thirsts for the living God. And whatever may or may not be
true about you, if you have a desire to know God Himself, you can be quite
happy that you are regenerate. That is something that the unregenerate is
incapable of, because the natural mind is `enmity against God' (Rom. 8:7) and we
are all by nature, as Paul says, `alienated and enemies' (Col. 1:21), away from
God. Unregenerate men and women are haters of God and do not want Him, and
are always ready to believe anything they may read in the newspaper which
purports, however vaguely, to prove that there is not a God. They are against
God, but the children desire to know God.

The last test I would mention at
this point---and again I regard this as very important---is that children of
God do not merely desire forgiveness of their sins and an avoidance of the
consequences of sins, but they also know what it is to hate sin. In other
words, in Paul's words in Romans 7, they say, `O wretched man that I am! who
shall deliver me?' (v. 24). Now sinners, unregenerate men and women, do
not like the consequences of sin, they do not want to be punished for sins, but
they know nothing about a sense of sin, they do not know a true conviction of
sin. They have not seen sin in all its vileness and foulness, in all its
ugliness, they do not hate it. But the children of God do. That is why our
Lord says concerning them: `Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after
righteousness' (Matt. 5:6). Why are they blessed? It is because they are already
children of God. Unbelievers cannot know, the unregenerate cannot experience,
this hunger and thirst after righteousness and true holiness. They may want
to live a good life and keep up to their standards, but Christians go beyond all
that. They have a positive hunger and thirst for a positive righteousness.
They want to be like Christ. They want to be like the saints of whom
they have read. They are not content merely with not committing certain sins but
want a clean heart. They want to be pure. They want to be holy. They want to
be like God. They hunger and thirst after righteousness.

Those, then, it seems to me, are some of
the main tests. They are not the only ones but I regard them as the most
important tests which we can apply to ourselves in order to discover whether or
not we are truly born again.

However, in dealing with this whole
subject of regeneration in his first epistle, John also introduces something
else and that is our union with Christ. That appears many many
times in that epistle. For instance, `He that keepeth his commandments dwelleth
in him, and he in him' (1 John 3:24). In other words, John sometimes writes
in terms of regeneration, of the seed of life, and at other times he puts it in
terms of the union of the believer with his Lord. Now thisdoctrine is quite inseparable from the
doctrine of regeneration with which we have just been dealing,
and that is why we have to take it at this point. I think you will agree that
there is no more vital, sublime and glorious doctrine than this.

Now some may be surprised at the fact
that we are taking this doctrine now. Indeed, you will find that many would take
it as possibly the last doctrine of all, the final doctrine, the one to which
all the other doctrines lead up. They believe that the union of the believer
with Christ is something that we only attain when we have arrived at an unusual
degree of holiness and of sanctity and therefore would not include it here,
comparatively at the beginning. Their confusion is entirely due to the
teaching of the mystics. The mystics have their gradation of the manner in which
one travels along the mystic way, and, according to their teaching, the ultimate
end of the believer is to become absorbed in and `lost in' the divine.

That is characteristic of practically all
the mystics---and when I say `the mystics' I am putting the term in inverted
commas. The apostle Paul was a mystic but not in the sense of which I am now
speaking. I do not want to call them professional mystics but I think you know
what I mean by that. I refer to the mystics who are more philosophical than
spiritual or the mystics who are more philosophical than scriptural. These
mystics . . . have a view of these matters that is closer to philosophy than to
biblical truth. And as I understand his writing, even a great Englishman
like William Law has to go into this category. He was a man to whom John and
Charles Wesley owed a great deal in the early stages, but they broke with him.
They left him, and very rightly so, because they found that he was too
philosophical and not sufficiently scriptural. All these philosophical
mystics tend to think of the union of the believer with Christ as a kind of
absorption into the eternal. This same kind of thing is also characteristic of
the teaching of many of the eastern religions.

Furthermore, unfortunately, that kind of
teaching has often influenced Christian people and even, indeed, evangelical
Christians. So they tend to think that the only people who really experience
this union with Christ are those unusually and exceptionally holy, sanctified
people who, by tearing themselves away from the world and mortifying themselves,
have at last attained this mystical union. But I want to try to show that that
is an utterly false doctrine, and that the doctrine of the union of the believer
with Christ must come at this particular stage in our consideration of the
doctrines.

Why is this? Because, as I think I shall
be able to show you, all the benefits of Christ's redemptive work come to us
through this union. I will go further and say this still more strongly by
putting it negatively. We cannot receive any blessing whatsoever from the
work of the Lord Jesus Christ unless we are joined to Him, unless we are in
union with Him, every one of us. Let me give you one verse straightaway
which will establish the position. Take this statement: `Blessed,' says Paul,
`be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who hath blessed us with all
spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ' (Ephesians 1:3). That is
it. All these blessings, all these spiritual blessings in the heavenly
places, are all ours in Christ and we have nothing at all apart from that.

Let me give you one other verse,
which I shall quote again later on, which says the same thing. John puts it in
the very prologue of his Gospel: `And of his fulness have all we received,
and grace for grace' or `grace upon grace' (John 1:16). We have all received His
fulness. How? By being joined to Him. You receive nothing unless you are joined.
You must be joined to the source before you can receive anything whatsoever.
Therefore, you see, we are constrained to say that even regeneration itself,
which we have already been considering, is, logically, an outcome of our union
with Christ.

Chronologically, as regards time, of
course, there is no doubt but that the two things happen simultaneously. The
moment we are joined to Christ, we are born again. The moment we are joined to
Him we receive this principle of life. If you look at it from the strict
standpoint of time you cannot put one before the other; but, logically, you
almost have to put the union before the regeneration. I have taken them in this
slightly different order because starting, as I have done, with the whole idea
of the call, it seemed to me that as we emphasised the effectual call, we then
had to go on to regeneration, but then say that this union of the believer with
Christ is the cause of the regeneration.

Now in many ways, of course, it can be
said that the special and particular work of the Holy Spirit is to
produce this union. Was that not what our Lord meant when He turned to the
disciples and said, `It is expedient for you that I go away; for if I go not
away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send him
unto you' (John 16:7)? It is out of this union, you see, that all the
blessings proceed. Here is a bit of homework, a task for Bible students!
You will find that this doctrine of the union of the believer with Christ seems,
in many ways, to be the doctrine of all doctrines given to the apostle John to
emphasise. Of course it is elsewhere---you find it in the apostle Paul---but
it does seem to be the doctrine particularly emphasised by John. Now work
through his Gospel and note carefully the point at which he begins to talk about
this union. I think you will discover that it is the point at which John
specifically introduces the teaching of our Lord concerning the Holy Spirit. In
other words, you will find it beginning in John 14. The moment our Lord begins
to tell His disciples about the Holy Spirit, He begins to tell them about the
union. In many ways, the classic passage on this whole doctrine of the union
of the believer with Christ is to be found in that section of John's Gospel
which runs from chapter 14 to the end of chapter 17. What a glorious portion
of Scripture it is! And yet, you see, it comes in precisely in connection with
the doctrine of the person and the work of the Holy Spirit.

That is what I meant when I said thatthe particular work of the Spirit does seem to be to unite us to our beloved
Lord. There are those who would teach---I do not know to what extent they
are justified scripturally, but at any rate it is a thought that is worth
repeating---that that is the special work of the Holy Spirit in the Godhead, in
the blessed Holy Trinity. They say that the third Person is, as it were, the
kind of connecting link between the Father and the Son. That may be pure
speculation, we do not know, but we do know that it is He who unites us to the
Son and to the Father, and that this work of communion and of union seems to be
His particular office.

Now, then, as we approach this great,
glorious and transcendent doctrine, let us start again by considering some of
the terms that are used in the Scripture itself. And first and foremost we
have to put that expression which, alas, so many of us tend to slip over in our
reading, whether in private or in public, but which, in many ways, is the
greatest term ever used concerning anybody in the Scripture: `in Christ', `in
Christ at Corinth', `in Christ at Colosse'. Paul uses it in that list of names
which he gives in the sixteenth chapter of Romans, a chapter which so many
people do not read because they say, `It's nothing but a list of names!' Read it
again and you will find that Paul refers to Andronicus and Junia who, he says, `were
in Christ before me' (v. 7). And what a thing to say! The Christian is a
man or woman who is in Christ. `The saints', wherever they may live, are
`in Christ Jesus'. The phrase varies but there it is, it really says
everything; and the point I am emphasising is that there is no such thing as
being a Christian unless you are in Christ. You cannot be a Christian just by
believing certain things and saying, `Now if I keep on, one day I shall be in
Christ and joined to Him.' Not at all! You are either in Him now or you are not
a Christian.

Let us take another passage. In John 15,
our Lord compares this union to the union between a branch and a tree. He says,
`I am the vine, ye are the branches' (v. 5). That is something which will help
us to understand this mystical union. It is comparable to that which exists
between a tree, the trunk and the branches which are a vital part of that tree.
That is a vital relationship, a union.

But then the Bible also says that this
union is comparable to that between the head and the members or parts of a body.
'Ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular,' says Paul in 1
Corinthians 12:27. And Paul says the same thing in Ephesians 4:15-16:

But speaking the truth in love, may grow
up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ: from whom the whole
body fitly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplieth,
according to the effectual working in the measure of every part, maketh increase
of the body unto the edifying of itself in love.

Then in Ephesians 5: Paul has still
another comparison---and, incidentally, the apostle has a greater variety of
illustrations and analogies with regard to this question of the union of the
believer and Christ than with regard to any other subject. In Ephesians 5 he
says, `For we are members of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones. For this
cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and shall be joined unto his
wife, and they two shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery: but I speak
concerning Christ and the church' (Ephesians 5:30-32). The union, he says,
existing between the believer and the Lord is the same as the union between a
husband and wife, it is that kind of union.

But then we have another picture in 1
Peter 2:4-6 where Peter says, `To whom coming, as unto a living stone,
disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, ye also, as lively
stones, are built up a spiritual house . . .' You see the idea? The
relationship is compared to a building, and in verse 6 Peter goes on to say that
our relationship to Christ may be likened to the relationship between individual
bricks or stones and the chief cornerstone: 'Ye also, as lively stones, are
built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual
sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ. Wherefore also it is contained in
the scripture, Behold, I lay in Sion a chief cornerstone, elect, precious.' And
that is a very important relationship in the erection of any building.

And then finally there is one other
comparison. It is a comparison which Paul makes and it is a vital one from the
standpoint of doctrine. He draws a contrast between the union of the unbeliever
with Adam and the union of the believer with Christ. It is the great argument in
Romans 5, which is repeated in 1 Corinthians 15:22 and 49. In Romans 5 the whole
argument is that death passed on to all people because of Adam. Why? Because of
their relationship to Adam; that is the whole doctrine of original sin. We
are all condemned in Adam because of Adam's sin. He was our representative,
you remember,' he was our federal head and, not only that, we are bound to him,
we were in the loins of Adam when he fell. In Adam all died. In Christ all
shall be made alive again. That is it. The relationship of the believer to
Christ is the same sort of union and relationship as that old relationship of
the whole of Adam's posterity to Adam. We are all born in Adam and we are
related, we are joined in that way. Yes, but, being born again, we are in the
same sort of relationship to Christ. What a vital doctrine that is when we
come to consider the results of the union! We shall see that it is the most
precious truth we can ever grasp. Read it again for yourselves in Romans 5 and 1
Corinthians 15 from verse 21 onwards.

So I trust that I have made the
connection between these things plain to you. Regeneration and union must
never be separated. You cannot be born again without being in Christ; you are
born again because you are in Christ. The moment you are in Him you are born
again and you cannot regard your regeneration as something separate and think
that union is something you will eventually arrive at. Not at all! Regeneration
and union must always be considered together and at the same time because the
one depends upon the other and leads to the other; they are mutually
self-supporting. And now, as we have looked at the Scriptures, and on the
basis of these Scriptures, we shall go on to try to consider something of the
nature of this union, then something of how the union is established and then
some of the glorious results of the union. May God give us grace and ability
to lay hold of these profound and precious practical doctrines! There is
nothing, I say at the end as I said at the beginning, that so strengthens my
faith and fills me with a longing to be pure as He is pure, and to live even as
He did in this world, as the realisation of what I am and who I am because I am
a Christian.I am a child of God and I am in Christ.(96-107)